Quadriceps are the group of muscles you see when you look at the front of your thighs. Also referred to as the “quads,” the quadriceps is comprised of four muscles. As a group, these muscles are among the most powerful in your body. These muscles include the three vastus muscles and the rectus femoris, a muscle that crosses both the hip and knee joints. The four muscles work together to extend your knee and flex your hips. Because these movements are so important, you need your quads to be strong. Research even shows that weak quads increase the risk of osteoarthritis of the knee.
There are also aesthetic reasons to have strong, defined quads. The degree of quad development affects the appearance of your thighs from the front. If they’re developed and you don’t have a lot of body fat covering them, they give the front of your body the look of someone strong and fit. As you might expect, it takes work to get that definition; they don’t come for free or from sitting too much. There’s another perk of having strong quads: when this group of four muscles is strong, it supports your knee and lowers the risk of knee injuries when you’re physically active. Strong quads also help you run and sprint faster and climb a set of stairs faster.
Several exercises work the quad muscles, but there’s one that stands out for its ability to shape the front of your thighs, and that’s the squat.
Why Squats Are the Best Exercise for Your Quads
Some people swear by leg extensions for building thigh strength and definition. However, leg extensions are an isolation exercise, a movement that only works one muscle group at a time. When you extend your legs against resistance, you isolate your quad muscles and they do all the work. That sounds like a benefit, but you work multiple muscle groups, including your quads, when you squat, and there are reasons why you want to do that.
When you work multiple muscles at the same time, it burns more calories and the stress of working several muscle groups simultaneously, according to some sources, creates more of an anabolic effect and this helps turn on the hormones that stimulate muscle growth. You also activate your hamstrings, the muscles in the back of your thighs, and your glutes (buttock muscles) when you squat. So, you’re giving the muscles in the back of your thighs a workout too. This approach makes workouts more time expedient since you don’t have to do separate exercises for your quads and hamstrings.
In addition, the squat is a functional exercise that teaches your lower-body muscles to work better together as a unit for greater functional fitness. You’ll get better at squatting down to pick something up and lift heavy objects off the floor in a safer manner when you do this exercise.
Leg Extensions Offer Benefits Too
Squats may be the best overall exercise for strengthening your quads, but leg extensions offer advantages too. When you extend your legs with leg extensions, you target your quads directly and in a focused manner. Leg extensions are an isolation movement for the quadriceps that allows you to only target that muscle and do it with precision.
For beginners, an advantage of leg extensions is they require less of a learning curve than squats. Even a newbie can safely do leg extensions without a high risk of injury. However, squats are technique dependent. It’s a more advanced movement, and if you do them with poor form, you could end up hurt or not getting the full benefits.
Once you’re more advanced, you may want to do both exercises for your quads. After training for a while, you may discover that one leg is stronger or better developed than the other and the weaker one needs more work. With leg extensions, you can work one thigh at a time to restore balance, while it’s harder to isolate one side when you do squats.
Which Should You Do?
For beginners, start by doing leg extensions for your quads until you build up baseline strength, and then add squats to your strength-training routine. When you have a baseline level of strength in your quads, start doing bodyweight squats with no weights until you’ve mastered the proper form. Then add resistance by using dumbbells or a barbell. Don’t use resistance in the beginning as it will distract from developing good form. Learning to do quality repetitions is more important than working with added weight when you first start.
Another advantage of the squat is there are many ways to make the exercise harder, You can increase the resistance or the number of repetitions, but you can enhance the depth to which you squat. A parallel squat is squatting to the level that your thighs are parallel with the floor or mat, but you can make the movement more challenging by squatting deeper until your buttocks almost touch the floor. This isn’t a movement you should try until you’ve been doing a standard squat for a while, as it’s an advanced move that requires good hip and ankle mobility. Make sure you’re ready to tackle a deep squat.
The Bottom Line
Squats, overall, might be the best exercise for your quadriceps, but leg extensions have advantages too. You can include both in your strength-training routine as long as you know the pros and cons of each. Keep at it and you’ll soon have the quad strength and definition you’re looking for. Balance your training though. It’s important to strengthen the opposing muscles, the glutes, and hamstrings, for balance. Inequalities in muscle strength increase the risk of injury. So, show your hamstrings some love too. Many women have more developed quads than hamstrings, so keep that in mind.
References:
- ClevelandClinic.org. “How to Strengthen Your Quads to Potentially Reduce Your Risk of Knee Osteoarthritis”
- Murray, Nicholas & Cipriani, Daniel & O’Rand, Denise & Reed-Jones, Rebecca. (2013). Effects of Foot Position During Squatting on the Quadriceps Femoris: An Electromyographic Study. International Journal of Exercise Science. 6. 114-125.
- net. “Squat”
- Oxygen Magazine Ultimate Beach Body. Page 93.
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